


recipes for fine dining

by theviolonist



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is a fine line between a cook and a murderer. Really, the only difference between the two is that one kills to cook while the other cooks to kill. Killing is involved either way." — <i>The Book of Salt</i>, Monique Truong</p>
            </blockquote>





	recipes for fine dining

**Author's Note:**

> Goes more or less AU after 1x06, _Oeuf_. Tentative attempt at a canon tweak in which Will, upon discovery that Hannibal is the Shrike, is eventually seduced into becoming an accomplice. Just as tentative is the chronology of the vignettes, so bear with me here.

" **A** _nd when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food. That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile himself therewith: I am the Lord._ " — Leviticus 22:8

 

In a way, it's almost a success story: shaky neurotic little Will from free electron turned spider's fly turned spider turned well-attuned companion, turned ferocious cook.

"What do you think?" The tie: deep burgundy threaded with gold at the edges or summer sky blue, both patterned against Hannibal's chest. The choice is a game, everything with Hannibal is a game; for a second Will pretends to hesitate. 

"This one," he says finally, brushing the pulp of his finger over a stream of gold and turning back to the closet to only allow Hannibal the merest inkling of his smile, a flicker muffled against the suit which he selects in the statuesque armoire and throws on the bed.

Hannibal tsks — he doesn't like it when Will mistreats clothes, which is the only reason Will ever does — and slips the tie's knot around his neck, a rustle of rich fabric that almost makes Will shiver. 

"Come here," he says then — the tie but not the pin, fingers pressed against the jugular, a household rule, no blood before dinner.

 

Eyes like his pierce the darkness, shoot their gleam forward almost cruelly. He spins a gilded letter-opener between his fingers, drawing Will into the vertigo of the movement. There is an ocean between the couch and the desk, but Will Graham is a man, could be a swimming Icarus if he wanted, could cross — 

Hannibal's lips open to bite. "Tell me, Will... have you ever dreamed of being God?"

 

The patio is full of lace-like shadows, cut into the red pattern of the pouring light. Shiny hoods gleam discretely as the guests' cars glide through the forest, the retelling of a fairytale where carriages stray off the beaten path, distracted by a tantalizing spitfire floating in the distance.

Hannibal is there to take the ladies' hands when they slide out, smelling of fur and expensive perfume. "Do come in," he says with an ample gesture. 

Will is waiting inside, leaning against the fireplace, his hands in his pockets, his feet crossed at the ankle. He looks up when he sees them — he sidles up to Hannibal in a fluid movement and settles in the hollow of his ribs, the missing element to their evident wholeness. 

"It's a pleasure to have you here," he says with a wicked little smile which delights and amuses.

Will takes it upon itself to entertain Bella Crawford. He knows she makes Hannibal somewhat uncomfortable: in the privacy of their bedroom he bemoans her beauty, such classical bearing, elegant gait, wasted by something so common as illness — and he who would never touch rotten meat sometimes seems to Will like he might shirk from her not out of superstition (the old fear of catching through touch her leprosy) but purely out of of disdain. Their food is wasted on her, he says — but all the same, he can't resist the appeal of Jack Crawford at his dinner table and the pleasure of taunting him. Look at him, he says when they eyes cross over the precise hold of Will's finger on the knife; look at us. No, it never gets old.

Jack Crawford raises an eyebrow at Hannibal's own words of welcome. "You come highly recommended," he says — a man who knows a good meal when he sees one.

And what a good meal it is! The meat, it is said, is nowhere more tender, bloody and luscious than at Graham and Lecter's. It isn't enough that the pair in itself is so fascinating, has a quietly dazzling quality which brings the audience back over and over again; that their house invites pause by its magnificence, the towering staircases and sprawling mezzanines, the long expanses of windows, the shelffuls of books — in the end it is the food that grounds everyone to their seats like so many pomegranate seeds.

"This really is delicious," Alana says, swallowing a mouthful of lamb. She raises her glass to them, her wrist regal — more fuel to the rumors of her indistinct aristocratic origins, certainly. "As usual."

Hannibal reclines into his chair at the end of the table. He catches her movement in the air and replicates it, addresses it to his own companion, facing him over the length of dark wood. "Will's getting better every day, isn't he?"

Even the sour wife, rejuvenated by a glass of Syrah, oohs and aahs. "Your husband cooks everything himself?" she asks Will. 

"We cook together," he answers without looking at her, a tangled smile catching on the edge of his teeth.

 

Will, his hands wrapped nervously around his service gun, ready to kill a man (he's always ready to kill a man, but really it's all semantics). 

"I want to tell you a secret, Will." Even with his mouth full of blood, Hannibal Lecter's hands are clean. He holds the knife in a sure, seasoned grip, never sliding between his gloved fingers. Will beholds the monster and sees only an artist. 

"What? That you're a raging psychopath who eats his victims?" he says, his eyes wide, muscles coiled in precarious anger. "Because I already knew that."

Hannibal smiles, a teacher indulging a child. "No, not a secret about me. A secret about you."

 

It's easy to forget what century you're dining in like this, surrounded by looming paintings and the pungent darkness that transforms and divines. It looks not only possible, but evident, that Will and Hannibal have been around for a hundred years, serving mutton on silver plates, their squares a bloody bloom on the fabric of their exquisitely tailored chests. They were born on two feet and fully clothed, like kings, and they've been holding court every Friday since then, catching each other's reflection in the spark of silverware. 

No one ever asks them how they met, or how they fell in love. Those who know know only parts of the story, and the rest are satisfied with popular lies; why not instead ask about the _Temptation_ that overlooks the room, Saint Anthony multiple and tortured as they eat fresh, savory meats in their Sunday best?

"To God," Hannibal raises his glass — red.

"We thank you for this holy meal," Will continues. 

There is a moment of silence — pious, one would probably call it, if one didn't know what a lovely couple the assembly is sinking their teeth into — and as the roast is brought out, Hannibal's fingers slide around the carving knife. 

He stabs the air over the table, points the knife blade first at his partner in crime; a fancy trick, and some breath out as the metal disappears in his palm, presenting the gilded handle. "Will you do the honors, Will?"

The smell — the smell alone is enough for rapture. "It'll be my pleasure." 

 

Will has a thousand murders stored inside his head, all perpetrated in horrible and surprising ways; but he never imagined this, that he'd be sitting there in Hannibal's living room, blinking against the blinding light of day, watching…

Hannibal smiles at him over the tilted edge of his blade. "I know liver doesn't sound like a very savory organ, but trust me, it is."

Will looks at him and tries to see the cannibalistic killer he wrote so many lectures about, and fails. "How can you be so _calm_ about this?"

"Will," Hannibal says, his face serious and angular, "you are here of your own free will. You can leave any time you want. I just want you to be honest about what you feel."

"What do I feel?" he asks. His voice is mocking, but he knows what he's doing — playing along. Psychopaths like that, he knows: they like trophies and they like admirers, they like taking you on sick little chases. Now would be a good time to call the police — he's going insane, his head — the smell of blood — 

Hannibal molds himself into a haven; Will sees it from between parted eyelids, but as usual, is unable to resist. "Come here. Take a seat, you can call Agent Crawford after we've eaten."

Will's face twists into a painful grimace. "I'm not hungry," he says, trying for derision and missing by a landslide. 

Hannibal looks up at him, his eyes molten copper in the afternoon light. "Aren't you?"

 

 _Phoenix rising_ , someone called it when Hannibal started throwing parties again. Not only for himself: there was a man at his side who had also risen out of the ashes, a colorless FBI consultant whose unexpected bloom had turned him into a perfect (monster) host; a delicious chiaroscuro of a man, with an almost unholy talent for cuisine. 

"Will," Hannibal declares when people ask, smiling like a proud father, "Will Graham."

They come to see him cook. He wields the knife like it's the only thing he's ever done, slices tomatoes and pomegranates with a steady hand, makes everything sizzle and shine; expertly, he adds basil and sage, under his care the meat is tender, raw, thick with juice and blood; while in the corner the potatoes roast slowly, filled to bursting with cream and chives. 

_Phoenix rising._ Hannibal was taller, broader, a genius entertainer, a flawless _hôte_ : he made the women twirl to Bach in his living-room and started going to the opera again, standing regal and discreet in his darkened box while on stage Arabella sang her heart out, never to be seen again...

\-- and when the lights dim they dance in the living-room, first all of them, a languid sort of academic dancing, with perfect classical steps, toes pointed in their dressing shoes, still holding their glasses in the air in toast; and then after the house empties out it is just the two of them, pressed chest to chest and laughing, smelling each other and telling the layers of perfume cinnamon flank human, over the same Bach waltz...

They almost always serve fruits for dessert. Hannibal has two mottos for his dinner — his "Nothing is vegetarian," that is really a tease because he likes to see just how happily the human race gets carnivorous; and that he believes in healthy cuisine. Fruits, then — plump strawberries and acid currant, sharp on the tongue, _fromage blanc_ topped with gleaming raspberries. The guests love it: they love how elegant all of this is, the whole display; they even moan when they find the caramelized slivers of what Hannibal calls lamb hidden in their desserts, sneaking under their tongues the smoky flavor of slightly burnt sugar and blood. 

 

"They'd do anything for you," he remarks. "The human race is lowly and desperate, but sometimes we reach unprecedented heights."

Her hair is haphazard, the perfect ringlets from the stage deranged when he grabbed her. The ideal in killing is to stir as little as possible, so that only the immobility betrays death; but it is a slow and meticulous process, one even he at times cannot execute to perfection. 

He holds the knife to her throat. "Would you sing, please?"

She looks at him, then — she's a strong and voluptuous woman, beautiful, and she looks at him with such unmitigated fear, Hannibal almost shivers with delight, what a delicious meal she'll undoubtedly make – when she sings —

" _Sposa son disprezzata_ , if you would be so kind," he murmurs.

And so she sings. He taps the building rhythm of the piano on her lips with his fingers, the slow, luscious beat before her voice emerges from her throat, golden. The vibrato against his blade is nothing short of heavenly. Oh, but why don't more people understand the joy there is to swallowing something which one adores? _Consummation_ , they used to call it. 

He slices off her fingers first, lovingly; but he hears the music in screams, too, and there is a murmur, an Italian lament, _egl'è crudel, morir mi lascierai_ , yes, he will let her die, she rains her voice on his fingers and he cuts away the delicacies — ears, toes, nose, tongue — for a breakfast with Will Graham, who deserves music for holding the secret on his tongue, learning to savor. 

 

They hunt together. It's easier, in a way, and once they get used to it there's an added thrill, a jubilant sort of companionship. They do their shopping like the old married couple they're probably becoming, driving to remote cities to buy a length of rope, a pair of gloves, a kit of Sabatier knives... They smile at each other across the rows of screws and nails, wicked. 

And when they come back home at night they don the apron and cook. Leftover lungs make for fantastic late-night dinners, glazed over with honey and lavender, until it seems that it could breathe again, right there on the table. When Will is tired Hannibal cooks for the two of them; he makes them little bites of seasoned flesh that he rolls and kneads, pressing pepper and cumin into them slowly, and then ties a roll of bacon around them, with the chives they grow on the kitchen windowsill. He adds a few gnocchi with that and sometimes they even eat right there in the kitchen, reclining in their chairs with Ravel playing softly, slightly shrill and so perfectly off-balance. Their knees are pressed under the table and there is no need for words, not anymore. 

Hannibal smirks and remembers how chatty Will used to be at first, how critical he was of the cooking. He didn't understand how someone could put so much time into it. He would always have to be doing something while he ate, read a book, the newspaper, think about the case, talk, or even bob his knee up and down... until unfailingly Hannibal would pin him down with his gaze, say, "Calm down, William" and lift his fork to his mouth, tongue flattened, reverent. 

They make their own ravioli now. They stuff it with the best parts of the meat, the musical parts, the fleshy underside of the arms and the calves when they're not too stringy; they mince it manually, which is painstaking but worth-it, hours of standing there in the kitchen, flank to flank, for this perfect flavor that melts on the tongue. Really, it's the only way to do _cuisine_ : with a sense of time that is at once excruciatingly meticulous and concerned with languor, with setting a hip against the counter and watching the stew simmer for hours, barely bubbling under the surface. The results are always worth the wait. 

Their guests love it, too. They file inside the house, each bringing their piece of news from the outside, they hug and kiss and shake hands with dainty smiles, as offerings; but inside they eat, they're wolves – for an hour the silence is only broken by the drag of silver on porcelain, lips smacking, quiet hums of pleasure. Afterwards they pad their mouths with a napkin, one cheek still bulging —

"Delicious," they say, trying to sound casual. 

Which is when Hannibal remembers the first time he offered someone a ride ( _Please, it's no trouble_ ) and the thrill of their blood gurgling out, free, over his hands; and Will's twenty-second murder, when he stopped being a pupil and started being his master's equal. 

A man cannot stand alone at the top of the world, Hannibal had known then — he needs someone to see him, and be there at his side. 

 

It's one thing, keeping a secret. Hannibal is almost afraid for Will, who won't have slept, who will have been tossing and turning, trying to decide on a feeling, on victim or attacker, on something good and _moral_ to put an end to his questions. He won't betray him — that's not what Hannibal is worried about, he's too deep in now, and besides he's worried of Jack who looms, who always looms over him like an over-protective vulture. Will will know that Hannibal is another kind of bird of prey: he doesn't tear off the flesh like Jack, unthinkingly. He used to say the Shrike was cruel but that's not what Hannibal would call it, not – kindness, either. _Délicatesse._

A fist pounds over his door at four am. From the sound Hannibal guesses the man, and from then goes back to the fist, the individual, synecdochic part. White knuckles, bony joints over which the skin stretches, not malnourished but _badly_ nourished, without the necessary care for such a body. 

He opens his eyes, dons a bathrobe, velour slippers, and then the door. 

"Hello, Will," he says as Will barrels past him into the house. What bothers Hannibal slightly about it isn't as much Will's cavalier attitude (after all, who wouldn't panic in such a situation? Hannibal is surprised it took him that long to come running) but the fact that he, usually so concerned with privacy, doesn't mind it half as much as he should. Then again, toeing the line is his — specialty.

Will rubs his eyes. Their contours are purple and black, the whites streaked with blood. He's been having nightmares. Hannibal would need to mend that flesh before he ate it, would need to make it less sickly, heal the gangrene. He will.

He leads Will to the living-room. Will lets himself be led. Hannibal motions to a chair, "Why don't you sit down?"

Will is looking ahead now. His jaw is hard, he's unseeing, as determined as a man like him can be. "You can't do that," he says. "You can't keep killing people."

 _Don't be quaint,_ is what Hannibal would say with any other man, but instead he sits facing Will, joins his hands and says, "Why not?" 

( _Are you going to stop me, Will?_ )

Will looks up and their eyes meet — in a flash it changes again, and Will does not have an answer because he doesn't believe, beyond the deeply engraved wall of carefully learned morals, that killing is actually wrong. His head has been thrust underwater, forcefully and with an iron hand, too many times for him to still see the world in unchanging shapes, black and white, right and wrong: instead, everything is water. Water — water gets into the cracks. Water never sullies, but water cleans unseeingly, without judgment.

"It's alright," says Hannibal. The sweetness in his voice is strange in that it rises beyond condescension and slips into fondness — but even stranger is the way Will accepts it, doesn't kick or protest or rise with a rebuke.

So it begins in the quiet night. Hannibal makes copper-colored tea, odorant and strong. Will takes the bowl from his outstretched hands and drinks peace out of the porcelain.

 

Will's house burned down two and half years ago. It was a very tasteful event, a catharsis of sorts: Will walked up to his front door and — though Hannibal is the connoisseur out of the two of them and was the one to click his tongue, tasting the spark, the fizzle of creaking wood — lit the match himself. Then he walked back to the car calmly, his hands in his pockets, while at his back the house coughed up long flames, scaled golden like mermaid tails.

He took the hand Hannibal had outstretched — the way they touch is carefully choreographed, never misses a beat — and leant into his side. The dogs jumped out the door, howling to the death, pursued by long-fingered fire. _It's a kindness,_ Hannibal had said earlier, when they'd been planning, Hannibal already tasting the soot on the roof of his mouth, acrid but softly liberating. He knew, even then, that the surest way to get Will to perform the worst cruelties was to find in them a faint taste of holiness.

And now Will laughs as he watches his home disappear, wrapped into its scarlet ribbon. Hannibal won't lie, he likes the symbolism (a baptism by fire), but this is _more_ — this is about fulfilling that promise, giving an answer to that question. Yes, you can be God, but only if, like him, you're ready to destroy all that is yours. 

Now Will laughs — he laughs and he smells of gasoline with on his tongue the aftertaste of blood, freshly grounded coffee and smooth twelve-year-old _cognac_. His demons are pouring out of him as though he were a sinking ship, and they run, belly flat on the close-shorn grass as they try to catch up with the dogs, their jaws open and gleaming in the blue sea of fog.

(Will smelled like smoke and ruins for a week; the taste of fire sunk into the sheets of their shared bed, and the imprint of Will's body in the mattress was like a chalk Christ, the contours dark with sweat and blood.)

 

Will hides. He really is the mongoose under the house, this time — he hides for days, sleeping more than he should and nightmaring during the best of it. He doesn't return to his classes at Quantico, tries not to think about the Shrike, about Hannibal Lecter or about — anything, really. 

But even in his dreams things have changed. The stags are still the same on the outside, enormous beasts that shuffle heavily, their eyes like black marbles, unblinking — but now they march towards something different, Will can just tell — and when he comes to the corpses they blink awake and scream, something between pleasure and agony, their mouths open and their wounds dripping blood, blood — 

Which is when he wakes up, drenched in sweat — that in itself is almost a comfort. _I'm still afraid,_ Will thinks, and he clings onto it with the desperation of a man who knows the rope is going to sever any moment now. He immerses himself in cold water, sits among his dogs, pets them as he tries to quench the hunger. This is not who he is. 

He makes a mantra of it, something to exorcise Hannibal Lecter's hollow mouth and vibrant eyes. He's smart — he knows this is only a step towards acceptance, knows that if he doesn't go back there tomorrow it will be the day after, that he will walk away unshackled, leaving his nightmares behind, and it won't take long for him to become Hannibal Lecter's friend because he's already halfway there, because he knows the man and understands the monster. 

But he says it anyway. _This is not who I am._

And the silent night hollers, _yes, it is._

 

"Darling," he calls, "did you think about the scallops?"

Her laughter rings easy, reverberating on the stainless steel. "Of course," she says; she hoists the bag onto the counter and pulls out two beautiful scallops, their top a golden brown velour. "Here they are."

"Ah, thank you," he says, takes one of them from her and brings them to his nose. A cook is a also a perfumer, in a sense — Hannibal could find his way in the inkiest darkness, only guiding himself with sensation, sound and smell. 

Abigail giggles, flopping gracefully on one of the kitchen chairs. Like Will, madness skirted around her for a while, sniffing for a breathing corpse, but she came out of it on the other side — _his_ side. Now she is a fixture of their home: she has realized the power of letting things die and her child's skeleton has given place to a beautiful young woman, lean and sweet. Hannibal especially likes her, considers her a pupil; he even sometimes waxes poetic to Will about the symmetry of her face and the fascinating uncertainty of her soul.

The affection Will has for her is closer to kinship, a cautious bond Hannibal was wary of, at first, in his proprietary way; because he doesn't trust things he doesn't understand, and this skittishness of scared animals is something he appreciates in his preys but not in his companions. But they grew strong, like weeds, the both of them, resisting nightmares and tangling with the chiaroscuro in the most delicious of ways, her like a lone beast and he with surprising flamboyance — as if –—

"How are you going to cook them?"

Hannibal purses his lips. " _Flambé_ , I think. I have some Azteca de Oro – do you want to cook with me?"

She does, sometimes. She's still a little rough, but she's a fast learner; she lacks caution, but the fury of youth suits her, especially because she's so good at feigning languor, at lounging on chairs looking terribly bored, her hair curtaining half her face and her thin brows raised in permanent skepticism. She's got everything, the perfect heir: the chic and the bestiality, the humanity and that flair for secrecy that is so appealing in the young. 

"I'll watch," she says, folding her arms on the table. And she means it — she'll _watch_ , hawk-like, her eyes sharp, taking the science in. She should. 

She's a triumph at parties, too: she's a natural beauty, and if it were the 1850s she would have taken the spotlight away from the belle at the cotillon, a dark, red-mouthed girl in the corner, fanning herself boredly as the boys veered towards her like moths. _I should take her to the ballet,_ Hannibal thinks. _I should take her hunting._

"Oh," says Will when he walks into the kitchen, his finger marking the page in his book — _Le Rouge et le Noir_ , a limited edition Hannibal got him after his third kill — "Hello, Abigail."

"Hi, Will," says Abigail, smiling a little. She motions at the chair next to her, and Will sits soundlessly, feet crossed at the ankle; catches Hannibal's eye and smiles, a slowly spreading smile that uses all the muscles, deliberate so Hannibal can watch them work under the skin. 

 

"You're quitting," Jack Crawford says, matter-of-factly; even though what he's really saying is, _you're not out the door yet_. 

Will is a specialist in monsters, but he's always been bad at seeing those that lurk around him, right up against his throat. His failure at chasing them is something he's used to by now – he pets the childhood ones before going to bed, preparing for nightmares. 

But it's going to change now.

"Yes," he says, not meeting Jack's eyes. This will take time: Jack's shadow is heavy over him, eager to push him, it wants him to be subservient, contained. 

Jack moves around the room, gets bourbon and two glasses. He's a connoisseur — something Hannibal wouldn't like but would no doubt admire. "Did you talk to Alana Bloom about it?" he asks, handing Will a glass. 

Will doesn't drink. His glasses are slipping on his nose and the rim cuts his vision in two, a heavy black bar, grounding, certain. "I didn't, no," he says. He can't help but be a little nervous, the sort of frantic annoyance that always sets his nerves on edge, why is this so slow, as though there were something thrumming underneath, the good solution — 

"… Doctor Lecter?" Jack is saying, his eyes trained on Will's face. Will realizes that he saw what happened, caught the disorientation; he doesn't repeat his question. It makes Will angry for a second — he feels scolded, a disobedient child. 

"Yes," he says, too shortly for this sort of game. He's never had the patience for them, anyway. When he comes back to the house Hannibal will have dinner prepared for him, laid on the table – difficult to imagine – but if he — maybe, maybe this was a bad idea, of course it was a bad idea, a mistake, it will ignite his bones and he is not, he is not an angel —

"And what did he say?"

For someone so smart, Will wonders how Jack hasn't noticed that Hannibal isn't — has never been — on his side. He's a fantastic liar, of course, but even though Will didn't know the depths of his murderous genius he had caught the ambivalence, the soft, pungent darkness hiding under that crisp professionalism.

He sneaks a look at Jack from under his eyelashes. He's a formidable man, but if Will ignores the fear there are other things there, exhaustion, a fading, putrid odor of love... Cancer will do that to you. For all his lack of understanding — empathy rarely is synonymous for it, despite what people tend to think —, Will knows about illness in a raw, desperate way. It's leprosy, and the symptoms are already showing on Jack.

At least he's safe, Will thinks in an idle, almost cruel way. There's no pleasure in eating decaying flesh — as Hannibal said, a phrase which now rings in Will's mind like an essential truth, _it's all about the hunt_.

 

The air smells like musk and incense; the heavy brush of robes upon marble, rich fabrics, velvet, silk, painstakingly embroidered. Hannibal had come here once before, when he was young, but then the thrill had been more primal, almost juvenile, the heady rush of the undiscovered: standing impious in a sanctuary having held a beating heart in his hands not hours before, proving that if God did exist, he was benevolent to killers. 

He knows better now. He knows that God is arch and indifferent, a lazy divinity that enjoys killing almost as much as it enjoys sacrifice. 

"I've been here before," says Will from the shade — not a reproach, only an observation. 

His body seems deformed in the pooling shadows, made bigger, almost on scale with the enormous baroque ornaments shining their entitled golden gleams all around him. Yes, it would be different now that Hannibal isn't alone, and this is more of a pilgrimage — if only to show Him what a delightful companion he has found for himself. 

"Hasn't everyone?" Hannibal says. "But I find it changes with each visit."

Will gives a short laugh, turns around sharply to look Hannibal in the eye, his half-smile glittering in the musty darkness. Hannibal would install a table here and dine face to face with saints; when daylight breaks he would see the rays fall on Will's head, dripping on his curls, wrapping around his temples a lazy halo, and shine as they ate — 

Will's voice stirs him from his reverie. "Beg pardon?" he asks, and now Will stands before him, body leaning against one of the pillars — Hannibal would only have to reach to touch him, and the fact that he can, so simple, almost pedestrian, sends a quiet thrill running down his spine.

" _Tibi dabo claves regni caelorum_ ," Will repeats, the Latin rough and uneasy on his tongue. He tips his head back, enjoying the multiple blessings the statues bestow with their open hands, fingers poised in the air.

( _To you I will give the keys to the kingdom of heaven._ )

The cathedral isn't exactly silent, even at this time of year, the sharp winter when the Romans prefer to stay inside and eat and party — but it doesn't stop Hannibal from stepping forward and smoothing his palms over Will's cheek, his fingers trailing along his jaw, memorizing the design; and he kisses him, with an exacting bite, drawing just the right amount of blood for it to be merely an appetizer, a taste of what is to come. 

Will kisses back, groaning slightly into it. He always did lack Hannibal's _finesse_ , but it's part of his charm — a distrustfulness that, in time, turned to ardor and then to leisurely shrewdness. "I'm hungry," he says, licking the blood from the creases in Hannibal's lips. 

"Yes," Hannibal says — he closes his eyes and it seems to him that he hears a strain of organ, the roiling rhythm of a parade, no, an _Ave Maria_ , Saint-Saëns — and with the combined force of habit and pride he thinks, _ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae_... He forces his eyes open as Will sinks his teeth into the flesh of his throat. "It's a good city for that: they run fast and the streets are perfect for hunting. Better than Venice, at any rate."

Will's laugh is a low rumble against Hannibal’s pulse. "You don't swim?"

Hannibal makes a quiet noise of disapproval, presses his thumb just below Will's Adam apple and forces him to his knees with one hand, smoothing over the lapel of his suit with the other. "You know I don't like my food wet," he says with a sweet smile. 

Will smiles back, turning his face up. It catches the light — for a second he's half-monster, half-angel. "Amen," he whispers. 

 

There is only one thing which detaches itself in the murky obscurity of Hannibal's garden shed: the mounted head of a wide-antlered stag, its eyes glassy and black, muzzle open in frozen terror. It is as if Hannibal had reached inside him, grabbed his demons by the neck and twisted, to bring back to his house as a trophy; not worthy of a place in the living-room amongst more subtle victories. But perhaps it is better, Will thinks, that demons be relegated to darkness — though he knows better than to think that where they belong is where they stay.

He deambulates in reality as though it were a dream, and this is one of those perillous moments where he doesn't remember where to draw the limit, if he has already stepped into muderous fantasy or if he still belongs to the realm of the living. If he does, he is the only one — or so says the corpse that lies in a chair facing him. It rears forward, a ghost of flesh and bone; its face catches the sundown light and starts melting, wax near a candle flame. 

Will waits for the horror; for the fear to set in, for the outrage, for a scream to push its way out of his throat. He will reconquer those feelings later, before losing them once and for all under Hannibal's tutelage, but he will always remember this moment: standing in front of the indelible proof of Hannibal's guilt, which he had never even suspected, and feeling nothing but emptiness, a silence of the mind tainted only by a faint tinge of admiration. The same as when he writes his papers, and which others mistake for disgust — the two are so similar: Look at the cleanless of that wound, the flawless cruelty of that kill. But his energy has dimmed over the years. His head has become an unholy place. 

So there is a question: there is a question and Will, with no one other to ask, turns his eyes to the stag. But even though it has borne witness, it will not speak. In Will's head Hannibal's voice pipes up, cool and measured as always, heavy with all the things it isn't saying: _You must figure it out for yourself, my dear Will._

If only he could scream.

 

Lessons do not need to be dispensed in the darkness: in fact, there is a softly defiant quality to giving them before French doors, at the height of the afternoon, when the sun that melts against the glass is white and perfectly delineates every contour. Nothing can hide in afternoon light.

Hannibal doesn't play with knives. He has known others who do, but he doesn't deem them worthy of their trade and shuns them — for him they are both convenient killers and bothersome elements because obvious, blaring their vulgar obsessions to anyone who bothers to look. Will would spot them in a blink. 

No, Hannibal holds his knives still, instead. He knows how to grip each handle, which smooth grasp to apply to steel and which to wood hardened by the years and then molded again by flesh, by the slightly bitter salt of sweat.

"Don't choose them at random," he says now that he's got Will trapped, the proverbial fly, his heartbeat only a few feet away, so regular Hannibal would think he was sedated if he hadn't been there for days. "You must proceed with caution. Think of it as a market — you need to sharpen your eyes to be able to spot them quickly, focus on them and pick them out of a crowd."

Later, he promises himself, he'll take him outside and explain to him what Baudelaire meant when he wrote of the elation of the poet in the middle of the crowd; he'll tell him to listen for the thrush of skirts and dresses, the crisp of well-cut suits, the slick slide of skin on fabric and skin on skin. _You can choose with your eyes closed,_ he'll say, just like you can guess, under shut eyelids, if the meat is ready or only half-cooked, its flesh still tender and stringy, unacceptable to the tongue. 

Will looks on. Oh, playing with him has rarely been more of a delight. Hannibal knows he is a prideful man, but he had forsaken the idea of a disciple: look at him now, with Will Graham at his feet, subdued! It really is an unanticipated miracle.

"Artists seem like a good choice at first, but their flesh is often raucous, unsavory. You must strike for better targets: not where the flesh is most abundant, because then it loses its flavor, but the slightly rounded ones, the discrete pigs. You must find refinement and taste, and remember — they are inside. The chase gives them a salty tang, sometimes a little bitter. The cooking is important but the quality of the meat is paramount. Do you understand, Will?"

Will blinks, woken from a hazy, supernatural dream. Yes, Hannibal thinks, but dreams like this are the best because they spill over in reality — and contrary to what people could think, the appreciation derived from Hannibal's meals doesn't decrease with the horror of the discovery but on the contrary heightens, is colored with outrage and scandal. _I want to know,_ they'll say, and then it only takes one step, the gleam of a well-concealed blade, slashing cleanly across the throat… One must appreciate good cuisine, of course. Otherwise all efforts are wasted.

"Let's see... I think the best I ate was a cello player. Smooth and creamy, and then I marinated it for days, added thyme and lemon. Did you know the average man is smaller than a cello? It tells you all you need to know: there is a structure to holding it up, even sitting, a molding of the flesh which makes it different from that of other musicians, more refined, stronger. But you'll see — the other was a mother. You wouldn't have spotted them, but you will. You'll see. You'll be glorious -" — with your inability to cross anyone's eyes but the acuity of your gaze, he doesn't say — no need to be obvious here, Will's always perfectly understood his innuendos and euphemisms. 

But he will teach Will to look someone right in the irises and still conceal, they can learn from each other, there is no doubt about that. When Will has opened and soared he will be a genius, and then give Hannibal like grains of _fleur de sel_ the pearls of genius he is holding inside, the delicate cruelty that only ever comes from something that started rotting at birth, cannot be cultivated.

 

He never listened in church. Maybe that is the reason for all this: maybe he confused the words, took from the sermon that you should forgive the sin along with the sinner, and then stare at them with wide troubled eyes, and long for the thick sludge of blood between your knuckles.

"Have you ever used a garrote?"

Will turns his glance to Hannibal: no blood on those hands, but a metallic cord wrapped around his knuckles like a particularly perverse set of rings. Will swallows; not bile, words he cannot speak — yet. 

"No."

Hannibal smiles. He enjoys teaching: the superiority of it, of course, but also the tenderness that comes with passing on an art in danger of extinction. Murder, he says, will never go out of style; but style might very well be forgotten over time. "It's not difficult." He takes a step forward, his fingers on Will's shoulder. For the first time in the history of their interaction, Will doesn't feel cornered. "You have to wrap the garrote around your prey's throat. You don't want it to press against the Adam's apple, if there is one; that means a messy cut. Better to keep it nice and low, and then regulate the bloodflow with —"

How fitting, then, that the lesson should lead to a kiss: there are many things to learn but this is the path they have been following from the start — distrust to fascination to horror to respect to admiration, with a myriad of nuances only their seasoned eye, used to the fluctuations of light and dark, can catch.

Hannibal says something into the kiss. Will has to pull away to hear. Hannibal smiles; he knows the power of keeping a word on your tongue, of marinating secrets. 

"Good," he says eventually, his voice slow as molasses, deep and comfortable. "Good."

 

The chandelier hangs low overhead, crystal fragmenting the low afternoon light — fall, with its sweet goldens and pregnant reds, and the low gleam of the copper sun.

This — this is only a moment in the stream of time. Before there was the hunt, the three of them running until they weren't, and then breathing, coordinated, as they crowded around a man and he crawled on his hands and knees, pleading up to them, shaking. Really they were doing him a favor. They are. One can't understand sublime until one has truly tasted it.

And after — tomorrow night the house will fill up again with guests and they will host, they will be charming and occasionally guileless, sharing their jokes with that perfect understanding that makes people whisper about true love as though there were such a thing; they will get ready in the bedroom, standing at the foot of the four-poster, watching each other in silent ritual. They will pull their jackets over their shoulders — Hannibal will bow and adjust the gleam of Will's deer-shaped cufflinks with a handkerchief — ties will be knotted, tightened, with an audible gasp that will hang in the air for a second; and they will walk down the stairs, not hand in hand but side by side, and welcome Abigail who, as usual, will get there before everyone, sparkling in her green Armani dress, and ask — "Who's for dinner?" with a smile.

This is only a moment in the stream of time, but it's an exquisite moment, crafted to the bone. They have cooked and seasoned and the dinner is spread on the long mahogany table. It's rather like a stuffed turkey, Hannibal thinks as he surveys the corpse spread over the table. They've emptied his insides and cut out the savory parts, but left the rest of his body as a plate, a delicious recipient to their dinner. _That_ is why Hannibal calls what they do art, because they have the manner and the mind, and because nothing compares to this, mankind lying under the chandelier, its arms cross-like and its eyes closed, Jesus for the hungry.

He glances over at Will: there it is, the same spark in his eyes — _hubris_ , except for this meal which they have none but themselves to thank for they will not be punished, and instead they will feast, daintily sticking their forks into the roasted organs, reaching over the man's flanks to pass the salt. They will sip dark wine and converse cheerily, wipe their mouths with napkins made of French dentelle, close their eyes to inhale when the wind pushes through the ajar window and brings to their nostrils the scent of grilled meat and spices, basil, cumin, marjoram —

Hannibal's chair doesn't make a sound as he pushes it back and stands up, reaching for his glass and holding it in mid-air, over the gaping stomach. Will and Abigail mirror his movement — Hannibal watches their bodies ripple, their clothes rustle in the silence. Abigail taps her napkin to her mouth, staining it red.

They look at each other. This, without a doubt, is family: better yet, a trinity of artists, of monsters who walk on earth unpunished, and who alone know the true meaning of beauty, and hunger.

Hannibal smiles; they return it, their eyes free of doubt. " _Bon apétit_ ," he says softly, triumphantly, and they dig in.


End file.
